NEW CHALLENGES IN
E-GOVERNMENT APPLICATIONS
Angela Ionita
Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Romanian Academy
REZUMAT
Pornind de la noile tendinţe în dezvoltarea aplicaţiilor de eGovernment şi complexitatea lor,
acest articol defineşte în prima secţiune, termeni cum sunt eGovernment, eGovernance şi
eAdministration. Această secţiune este urmată de prezentarea implicării tehnologiilor
informaţiei şi comunicaţiilor în administraţia publică. În secţiunea următoare sunt prezentate
câteva aspecte legate de complexitatea aplicaţiilor de eGovernment. Ultima secţiune este
dedicată concluziilor referindu-se la o posibilă abordare a aplicaţiilor de eGovernment.
ABSTRACT
Starting from the new trends in the development of the eGovernment applications and their
complexity, this paper defines the terms such as eGovernment, eGovernance and
eAdministration on the first section. This section is followed by the level of ICT involvement at
different levels of public administrations. On the next section are presented some aspects in
connections with the complexity of the eGovernment applications. The last section is
dedicated to the conclusions concerning the possible approaching of eGovernment
applications.
CUVINTE CHEIE
e-Government, e-Governance, e-Administration, complexitatea aplicaţiilor de eGovernment
KEY WORDS
e-Government,
complexity
e-Governance,
e-Administration,
e-Government
applications
INTRODUCTION
“eGovernment is not about supporting business as usual, and the focus should
not be on ICT itself. Instead the e-government process must be closely aligned
with overall public sector reform - on the use of ICT combined with
organisational change and new skills to improve public services, democratic
processes and public policies.” (Press Releases, Information Society
Commission calls for re-think of eGovernment strategy)
The broader definition is common among those researchers and organisations that are
interested in society as a whole and not only in the technical aspects of eGovernment.
The researcher Jane E. Fountain (Fountain, J. E., 2001) sees the development of
eGovernment not only as a question of improving efficiency but rather as a process
that will change the structures for the administration and governance of society
(Fountain, J. E., 2001). This view is shared by the World Bank and by other
researchers in the field such as Sharon Dawes (Dawes, S. S., 2002). She defines
eGovernment as follows: “eGovernment is the use of information technology to
support government operations, engage citizens, and provide government services”.
This definition also entails a broader view of information technology that is not
limited simply to the use of the Internet but also covers other techniques such as SMS,
mobile telephony, MMS, telephone services and so on.
The European Commission has also adopted a broader definition of the term
eGovernment and describes it as:
“The use of information and communication technologies in public
administration combined with organisational change and new skills in order
to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support
to public policies.” (European Commission, 2003).
The broader definition of eGovernment thus embraces several aspects of governance,
public administration and society. A common feature of the definitions, however, is
that the changes referred to are rooted in the field of public administration.
This paper is a synthesis of different approaches presented on the literature, from
theoretical point of view to technological approaches. Starting from the new trends in
the development of the eGovernment applications and their complexity, the first
section of the paper defines the terms such as eGovernment, eGovernance and
eAdministration. The eGovernment concept includes a wide range of concepts,
communication means and solutions oriented to facilitate the communication and
interaction between the citizens and the public administrations. Instead of just
providing one single definition of eGovernment, has been incorporated more
definitions. These different definitions share the main elements of eGovernment and
we hope that will help to obtain a refined understanding of the concept. This section is
followed by the presentation of the level of Information Communications
Technologies (ICT) involvement at different levels of public administrations. On the
next section are presented some aspects in connections with the complexity of the
eGovernment applications. The last section is dedicated to the conclusions concerning
the possible approaching of eGovernment applications.
1. TERMINOLOGICAL ASPECTS
The terms eGovernment and eGovernance have been used interchangeable by many
years. But in our opinion is a world of difference between the two terms. For one
thing, eGovernance does not only apply to government, but also to any entity or
institution (Pena ,V. L., 2007).
1.1. e-Government
According to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government) eGovernment (from
electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government)
refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information,
providing services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of
government. eGovernment may be applied by the legislature, judiciary, or
administration, in order to improve internal efficiency, the delivery of public services,
or processes of democratic governance.
The primary delivery models are Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Customer
(G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G) &
Government-to-Employees (G2E). Within each of these interaction domains, four
kinds of activities take place (Brown, M. M., 2003):
 pushing information over the Internet, e.g.: regulatory services, general holidays,
public hearing schedules, issue briefs, notifications, etc.
 two-way communications between the agency and the citizen, a business, or
another government agency. In this model, users can engage in dialogue with
agencies and post problems, comments, or requests to the agency.
 conducting transactions, e.g.: lodging tax returns, applying for services and grants.
governance, e.g.: online polling, voting, and campaigning.
The most important anticipated benefits of e-government include improved efficiency,
convenience, and better accessibility of public services.
1.2. e-Governance
According to (http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3038&URL_DO=DO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html) eGovernance is the public sector’s use of
information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information
and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process
and making government more accountable, transparent and effective.
1.3. What differences?
On the one hand “e”, as a prefix to it, just means that the manner in which an
institution is governed has been ICT-enabled. On the other hand, eGovernment
applies to how government institutions have effectively developed “computerized”
systems. Governance means the institutions also has the responsibility to make sure
that the person is fit to drive. According to (Pena, V. L., 2007) eGovernance “is about
transforming the relationship between governments and their citizens through the use
of information technologies, and that eGovernment is about delivering government
services using information technologies”.
Governance, as defined and used by the corporate world, talks about the responsibility
and accountability of leadership to protect the interest of all its stakeholders.
Accepting this idea and many others, it can conclude that eGovernment and
eGovernance are not interchangeable terms. “Perhaps we can then say that
eGovernment is the means to achieving eGovernance” (Pena, V. L., 2007).
1.3. e-Administration
According to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Administration) eAdministration, or
electronic administration, refers to any of a number of mechanisms which convert
what in a traditional office are paper processes into electronic processes, with the goal
being to create a paperless office. This is an ICT tool, with the goal being to improve
productivity and performance. eAdministration can encompass both intra-office and
inter-office communication for any organization. Its objective is to introduce total
transparency and accountability leading to better e-Governance within any
organization. The implementation of any eAdministration solution should be
customer centric rather than organization centric, should remove dependence on
specific individuals, and should introduce transparent systems of working.
2. ICT AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS
While eGovernment is often thought of as "online government" or "Internet-based
government," many non-Internet "electronic government" technologies can be used in
this context. Some non-internet forms include telephone, fax, PDA, SMS text
messaging, MMS, wireless networks and services, Bluetooth, CCTV, tracking
systems, RFID, biometric identification, road traffic management and regulatory
enforcement, identity cards, smart cards and other NFC applications; polling station
technology (where non-online e-voting is being considered), TV and radio-based
delivery of government services, email, online community facilities, newsgroups and
electronic mailing lists, online chat, and instant messaging technologies. There are
also some technology-specific sub-categories of eGovernment, such as
mGovernment (mobile government), uGovernment (ubiquitous government), and
gGovernment (GIS/GPS applications for e-government).
There are many considerations and potential implications of implementing and
designing eGovernment, including disintermediation of the government and its
citizens, impacts on economic, social, and political factors, and disturbances to the
status quo in these areas.
2.1. Development and implementation issues
The development and implementation of eGovernment involves consideration of its
effects on the organisation of the public sector (Cordella, A., 2007) and on the nature
of the services provided by the state including environmental, social, cultural,
educational, and consumer issues, among others.
Governments may need to consider the impact by gender, age, language skills, and
cultural diversity, as well as the effect on literacy, numeracy, education standards and
IT literacy. Economic concerns include the "Digital divide," or the effect of non-use,
non-availability or inaccessibility of e-government, or of other digital resources, upon
the structure of society, and the potential impact on income and economics.
Economic and revenue-related concerns include eGovernment's effect on taxation,
debt, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), commerce and trade, corporate governance, and
its effect on non-e-government business practices, industry and trade, especially
Internet Service Providers and Internet infrastructure.
From a technological standpoint, the implementation of eGovernment has effects on
e-enablement, interoperability and semantic web issues, "legacy technology" (making
"pre-eGovernment IT" work together with or be replaced by eGovernment systems),
and implications for software choices (between open source and proprietary software,
and between programming languages) as well as political blogging especially by
legislators.
There are also management issues related to service integration, local eGovernment,
and Internet governance including ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN), IETF (Internet Engineering Task
Force, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF) and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3C), and financial considerations, such as the cost of
implementation/effect on existing budgets, effect on government procurement, and
funding.
Legal implications include freedom of information and privacy concerns. The phrase
"eGovernment" has been a rallying cry for public sector modernization since the 90's,
but for many it is now losing its appeal as a slogan or concept. This trend has various
drivers.
• Firstly, there is a wish to mainstream e-government so that best use of technology
is integrated into all public sector activity rather than seen as a special interest or
add-on.
• Secondly, many administrations recognise the importance of linking eGovernment
to wider public sector change programmes.
• Thirdly, the phrase e-government is itself not particularly useful in motivating a
change programme.
These sorts of considerations have led countries such as the UK to talk of
transformational government rather than eGovernment.
All these considerations suggest that eGovernment is entering a new phase and one in
which the term "eGovernment" is itself becoming less popular.
3. COMPLEXITY OF APPLICATIONS OF EGOVERNMENT
As mentioned in the eGovernment literature (Ronaghan, S.A. 2002; Commission of
the European Communities, 2003; OECD, 2003) an objective is to overcome
complicated and disintegrated administrative procedures. The bureaucratic complexity
of administrative service provision is increased by inherent variety in terms of
beneficiary entities (citizens or businesses), scope of interest (ranging from local to
national to cross-border) (Gouscos, D. et al. 2003) and content (ranging from firstcounter information to full transactions, possibly legally binding and financially
charged) (Anghern, A., 1997; Commission of the European Communities, 2001).
Usually, eGovernment services are provided through complex multi-step workflows,
involving exchange of administrative information and documents with increased
security, privacy and time-critical requirements. Such workflows may cross multiple
agencies and even span national borders, so that they come across different regulatory
frameworks and cultural contexts. There is not only the need to facilitate
eGovernment workflow modelling but also the grounds to do it, through identification
of recurring workflow patterns that can be re-used or adapted in new workflow
designs (Giannis Verginadis et al., 2004).
As mentioned in (J. Ramon Gil-Garcia & Theresa A. Pardo, 2006) electronic
government or digital government is not a simple or well-defined theoretical
construct.
On the academic literature has been identified at least three different approaches to
understanding electronic government (Gil-Garcia & Luna-Reyes, 2003, 2006).
• The first approach constructs a concrete definition or a list of elements that
contains the main characteristics of what is, or what should be, electronic
government (ASPA, 2001; M. Cook & LaVigne, 2002; UNPAN, 2002).
• A second approach is to list the different variants or applications of electronic
government as a way to clarify this concept (Hiller & Bélanger, 2001; Holmes,
2001).
• A third conceptual approach to electronic government takes an evolutionary
perspective; electronic government is defined by making reference to the different
stages that appear to exist in its development (Gil-Garcia & Martinez-Moyano,
2005; Layne & Lee, 2001; Martinez-Moyano & Gil-García, 2003; Reddick, 2004;
UN & ASPA, 2002).
“Undoubtedly, e-government is not a uni-dimensional phenomenon
and researchers must understand complex and recursive relationships
between factors related to technology, management, and policy”
(Dawes & Pardo, 2002; Fountain, 2001; Gil-Garcia, 2005).
3.1. Metadata in eGovernment applications
Data about the data can be as important as the data itself — possibly even more so in
some cases. Geospatial metadata (also geographic metadata or simply metadata when
used in a geographic context) is a type of metadata that is applicable to objects that
have an explicit or implicit geographic extent, in other words, are associated with
some position on the surface of the Globe. Such objects may be stored in a geographic
information system (GIS) or may simply be documents, datasets, images or other
objects, services, or related items that exist in some other native environment but
whose features may be appropriate to describe in a (geographic) metadata catalogue
(may also be known as a data directory, data inventory, etc.). Metadata helps people
who use data and geospatial data find the data they need and determine how best to
use it. Metadata supports producers in locating and using their own data resources and
data consumers in locating and using data resources produced by others. Metadata
also supports:
Data Management requirements to:
 preserve the data history so that it can be re-used or adapted,
 assess the age and character of data holdings to determine which data should
be maintained, updated, or deleted,
 instil data accountability by requiring you to state what you know about the
data and realizing what you don’t, but should, know about your data
 limit data liability by explicitly designating the effective and administrative
limits of use of the data.
Project Management requirements to:
 plan and document the data types and content needed to support the project
 monitor data development by regular review of the process steps completed
and recorded within the metadata
 provide all project participants a common language of attributes and process
methods and a place to record and share their progress
 access the lineage and content of outsourced data production by requiring
robust metadata as a contract deliverable.
As personnel change in an organization, institutional knowledge leaves the
organization. Undocumented data can lose their value. Subsequent workers may have
little understanding of the contents and uses for a digital data base and may find they
can't trust results generated from these data. Also, lack of knowledge about other
organizations' data can lead to duplication of effort. It may seem burdensome to add
the cost of generating metadata to the cost of data collection, but in the long run
metadata are worth it.
3.2. The first class of characteristics
3.2.1. Dynamic content of eGovernment applications
Dynamic content is a key aspect of the present and future eGovernment applications.
In eGovernment applications not all objects gaining some advantages from record,
may have fixed positions, but only current positions will be reflected in eGovernment
applications. For those dynamic objects it is necessary a different interface to maintain
their positions and the names of associated geographical domains in a Web hierarchy.
External/Internal
The most complex approach appear when eGovernment applications are used in order
to provide information and services for multiple departments of central and local
public administration institutions. But it is a paradox, this approach discussed only by
most visionary, because speak about one stop shop, and in this context e-business add
value to the central and local governance. Also in this context it is requested an
integrative approach of multiple functions of administration asking for processes reengineering but also for data provided by central and local public administrations and
public and private sector institutions.
Figure 1. The characteristics of eGovernment applications
3. 3. The second class of characteristics
3.3.1. Integrability
Despite the barriers which are still left, and the struggling of organizations to support
the internal requirements B2B (B2B = business to business) is really taking off.
Evolution of application start from standalone systems (stovepipes) via EAI
(Enterprise Application Integration) to real integration of component based, loosely
coupled, Internet connected, distributed applications. Most of the EAI providers
mentioned in (J.W. Koolwaaij, P. van der Stappen) are moving towards business
integration, because most of the techniques and technology that make up EAI are also
applicable to B2B.
WebMethods, one of the largest B2B providers, sells their integration platform by
representing it as “the solution for integrating the extended enterprise by addressing
the six key elements encompassing a business process - enterprise applications,
mainframe and legacy applications, databases and data warehouses, human
workflow, Web Services and business partners.” (http://www.webmethods.com/). In
other words, on top of integration of enterprise-internal applications, databases and
legacy systems, B2B has to integrate businesses, by exposing their applications to
their business partners using eGovernment applications, and to be able to find
business partners and the services they offer in a dynamic way.
Although B2B “is often over-hyped, the e-business is much more closely integrated
with its customers, suppliers and partners simply because the communications
technology enables this to happen. And whilst the focus of EDI (electronic data
interchange) was mainly on integration of data, the focus of new Internet based
technologies - like B2B, XML and Web Services- is not only on integration of data,
but also on integration of business functions and processes, thus enabling companies
to conduct business in a much more flexible manner” (Fennema, P., et al., 2001).
This means that “the relationships can be established and dismantled rapidly, making
transient relationships viable. Especially for specific projects and non-core processes,
it will be possible to dynamically find a suited third party that offers the desired
product, service or information. In this scenario, it becomes more difficult to define
the scope of an e-business application as parts of the business components are
executing in completely different environments” (Fennema, P., et al., 2001).This
requires open protocols to connect to and integrate with these business components, in
particular pre-defined, well-designed and agreed-upon interface definitions and
process specifications, to obtain a much looser coupling of technologies.
In this context, one of most promising concepts in B2B of today is the notion of Web
Services. “Web Services can be seen as business functions exposed to the web using
standard, open web protocols, which allow companies and individuals to make their
digital assets available to the global community at large in a simple and effective
manner”?(Fennema, P., et al., 2001).
3.3.2. Transactionality
Transactionality is the ability to use/process a transaction. The transactionality is
characterized by: Re-usability, Co-operative work, Multi-Party, Semantics,
Composability, Modularity, Information Driven, Information Alignment, Exceptions
management.
3.3.3. Extensibility
In software engineering, extensibility is a system design principle where the
implementation
takes
into
consideration
future
growth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensibility). It is a systemic measure of the ability to
extend a system and the level of effort required to implement the extension.
Extensions can be through the addition of new functionality or through modification
of existing functionality. The central theme is to provide for change while minimizing
impact to existing system functions.
3.3.4. Trust and Reliability
When Web Services become popular for outsourcing certain pieces of functionality to
dedicated service providers, it will be unavoidable that the first failures get a lot of
attention. A service requester will start to balance the advantages of outsourcing (no
implementation costs, low maintenance costs) against the reliability and flexibility of
a Web Service. So these two elements are essential for a successful long-term
operation of Web Services. The first Web Services are already mushrooming, but the
focus is mainly on presence. Reliability and flexibility are only a second goal,
whereas they should be key issues.
3.3.5. Performance
Currently, companies can get a handle on their performance issues. Bottlenecks are
typically code that could be optimized, a need for more servers, or a need for a faster
Internet connection. Additionally, companies have come to know their business traffic
by the occurrence of special events, time of year, time of the month, time of the day,
etc. Many companies make plans so that when the heavy periods of traffic arrive, they
will have sufficient resources to handle the load. But Web Services will introduce new
bottlenecks. At the moment, the Internet offers no guarantees for available bandwidth
at a certain moment in time. However, new versions of the Internet protocol will
include the notion of quality of service. Still, there is no way to predict when heavy
times will hit for a specific Web Service. Beforehand, it is unknown what the upper
capacity limit of a Web Service might be. Benchmarking and evaluation tools may
have a new opportunity here, as well as monitoring tools, which report violations in
the service level agreement of a Web Service.
3.4. The third class of characteristics
3.4.1. Utility and Usability
In (Duda, Sabrina et al.) is mentioned that the outstanding approach to usability taken
by (Shackel, B., 1991) has been much used and modified (Chapanis, A., 1991; Booth,
P.,1989) and was among the first to recognize the relativity of the concept in a number
of respects. Shackel (Shackel, B., 1991) starts his presentation from a model of
product perception, where acceptance is the highest level concept. The user or
consumer is supposed to compare the properties of the product to the sacrifices
needed to acquire it. In a purchase situation, utility, usability and likeability are
balanced in a trade-off with the costs of the product. The best possible alternative is
selected, i.e. it is acceptable. Thus, acceptance is a function of perceived utility,
usability, likeability and costs.
Utility refers to the match between user needs and product functionality, while
usability refers to users’ ability to utilize the functionality in practice.
Likeability refers to affective evaluations, and costs include financial costs as well as
social and organizational consequences.
Having located usability in the context of acceptance, Shackel presents a descriptive
definition: "Usability of a system or equipment is the capability to be used by humans
easily and effectively." (Duda, S. at al.). From the angle of consumers’ product
evaluation the short definition is adequate, because their own situation determines the
context. 'Easily' refers to "a specified level of subjective assessment", and 'effectively'
is equal to "a specified level of human performance".
Nielsen suggests that usability and utility together form the usefulness of a system. He
makes this explicit: "…utility is the question of whether the functionality of the system
in principle can do what is needed, and usability is the question of how well users can
use that functionality." This view is also supported by for example in (Grudin, J.,
1992). Grudin (Grudin, J., 1992) associates usability and utility with totally different
disciplines, i.e. computer science and information system research. He takes the view
that the differences also reflect on the design processes. Utility is defined first by the
product managers, usability being subsequently optimized by the designers. Grudin
(Grudin, J., 1992) heavily stresses a more integrated design process, but does not
suggest that the concepts themselves should be merged.
The ability of the functions to help the user carry out a set of tasks is called utility.
Usability is a concept that focuses on the problems of how users utilize these
functions. Nielsen does not present any descriptive definitions of usability, but
considers the operational criteria to define the concept clearly enough (Nielsen, J.,
1993): Learnability, Errors, Satisfaction and Memorability.
Learnability refers to the novices’ ability to reach a reasonable level of performance
rapidly. Errors refer to the number of errors users make, to their ability to recover
from errors, and to the existence of catastrophic errors, which destroy the user’s work.
Satisfaction refers to users’ subjective assessment of the system concerning how
pleasant it is to use. Memorability refers to the casual user's ability to remember how
to use a system after a period of time.
ISO 9241 defines usability as "the extent to which a product can be used by specified
users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a
specified context of use." According to ISO 9241, the dimensions of usability are:
• Effectiveness: the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified
goals.
• Efficiency: the resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness
with which users achieve goals.
• Satisfaction: the comfort and acceptability of use.
Effectiveness measures usability from the point of view of the output of the
interaction. The first component of effectiveness, accuracy, refers to the quality of the
output and the second, completeness, refers to the quantity of the output in relation to
a specified target level. Thus, including effectiveness means including the anticipated
utility of the system in usability. Efficiency describes the interaction from the process
point of view and relates effectiveness of interaction to resources expended. It may be
measured in terms of mental or physical effort, time, materials or financial costs.
Satisfaction has two components – comfort and acceptability. It refers to the user's
point of view.
3.4.2. Self-maintenance
Who is going to pay for eGovernment applications? Solutions include the micropayments model for small eGovernment applications based on Web Services (might
be difficult to implement), the advertising model (only applicable for a special range
of eGovernment applications based on Web Services), the subscription model for
heavy users, or the package model for Web Services which are part of a larger
business service. But the question how to make eGovernment applications based on
Web Services profitable will be a hard one to tackle. We expect that now business
oriented web services emerge, the subscription model will be a feasible one for these
early adopters.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper and more others mentioned on the academic literature identified the key
challenges of:
• Designing services around citizen and business;
• Moving to a shared service culture, releasing efficiencies through standardisation,
simplification and sharing;
• Improving government’s ability to plan and deliver ICT-enabled change.
The discussion document build on these challenges and places them in the context of
three main headings (figure 2).
Figure 2. New eGovernment
It is necessary to mention that the change requires not just ‘connecting’ citizens but
rethinking everything from a citizen point of view. It is about creating a culture in
which change and continual improvement are accepted as the norm.
Creating New eGovernment requires not only to introduce new technology but
• Develop methodology for streamlining and simplifying internal processes to
establish efficiencies, ensure business continuity and ultimately share services;
• Develop prioritisation method of high volume, high cost transactional services for
Review;
• Continue to develop knowledge and skills in project management to effectively
deliver range of projects;
• Develop an ICT training programme to maximise the benefit for support staff in
their use of technology;
• To challenge decisions to procure separate solutions and work towards effectively
managing ICT assets, maximise benefit investment, prioritise resources;
• To establish standards for consistent use of ICT, consistent standards of
applications for use and to develop consistent roles for those responsible for ICT;
• To develop capacity and skills to manage projects effectively and in a consistent
way by adopting controls via appropriate methodology;
• Prioritise resources via work plans and develop investment plans for core
infrastructure upgrades;
• To ensure data held is not duplicated, is held within data quality standards, is used
effectively and is accessible;
• To ensure the ICT infrastructure is fit for purpose to support the business in its
operation.
Academic research and practical experience point to five fundamental needs:
1. A comprehensive and coherent strategy for e-government.
2. A transformation from our tradition of program-driven services to egovernment's promise of integrated service.
3. A way to offer services that resolves the issues associated with privacy and
data sharing.
4. A shift from yesterday's static Web to the new dynamic and interactive Web.
5. New models for public-private partnerships and other networked
organizational forms.
In (Lennart Nordfors et al., 2006) has been identified three stages for the development
of cohesive administration, from the voluntary co-operation between the authorities
that already takes place in various trials today and network-based administration in
which horizontal relations between institutions and authorities are developed and
those involved rely on each others’ functions, to the consolidated service authority, in
which those parts of the authorities that have contacts with citizens and companies are
transferred to a joint service authority in its own organisational environment.
As final conclusion we propose the following. While at the level of every government
is investigating new technologies in the pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness in
eservice delivery as evidenced by current European Research agendas, the European
scenarios reveal (Frissen, Valerie et al., 2007) a potential impact on eGovernment that
threatens to change the traditional roles of government.
“These impacts are of three kinds. Firstly, the relentless drive towards always
on, pervasive and ubiquitous collection of personal and spatial data will result
in excessive exposure of citizens and government. Extreme transparency can
bring increased vulnerability and loss of freedom in acting out our roles as
citizens, businesses and government. This process may provoke an ICT fuelled
arms race between ambient government and citizen empowerment. Winner
takes all. The research challenge will be to develop approaches to monitor
and benchmark the evolution of transparency, accountability and privacy for
developments that go against the grain of constitutional and human values.
Secondly, in far reaching scenarios of e-democracy the complex intertwining
of social networks predict the blurring of roles of government, civil society
and business. Here the fundamental research challenge will be to monitor the
shift in responsibilities under new e-participation and e-democracy scenarios.
Finally, the exponential growth in intelligent data and systems will leave
modern government with the burden of stewardship of massive amounts of
sensitive data” (Frissen, Valerie et al., 2007).
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